


Underneath it all, I'm yours

by muffin_reverie



Series: Catalyst defined in a relationship [3]
Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 03:32:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6499117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muffin_reverie/pseuds/muffin_reverie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her fingers gingerly reach out for Josh’s hand and he notices it because his hand is also instinctively reaching for hers. Maya breathes in deeply at the warmth of their intertwined fingers. She knows long ago that what she felt for Joshua Matthews was more than a crush, but now – she is sure that her whole heart belongs to him and it will always be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Underneath it all, I'm yours

Maya tries to exhale as she watches Riley jump up from their place by the bay window, scampering around as if in a sudden panic attack and there is a flurry of colorful movements, but Maya can’t seem to process what is going on in front of her because her throat is tight and tears are beginning to blur her vision. She pulls her head back to look up, withholding the tears.  
  
“Maya, what are we going to do?”  
  
She looks down again to see Riley with red teary-eyes, looking for all the world in hopes that her best friend has the perfect answer to her question. Maya swallows the lump of grief in her throat, wanting to be brave for Riley, and stands up with a hug. Riley immediately finds the space in her arms and Maya holds the brunette tightly. “We are going to be brave, and we’ll go see him.”  
  
“I’m scared, Peaches.”  
  
“He’ll be okay.” Maya softly says. She doesn’t dare to voice out the small voice in her heart that echoes Riley’s words. “Josh will be okay.”  
  
“Riley, we are leaving for the hospital now.” Topanga’s voice fills the room. “Maya, do you want to come with us?” Maya sees Topanga’s small smile and she wordlessly nods. “Alright, let’s get going. Cory is meeting us there.”  
  
“Will he be okay, mom?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Topanga honestly answers, and Maya notices the anxiousness in her eyes which feeds the fear within Maya to grow. Topanga walks over and envelops both girls in her own hug.  
  
On the way to the hospital, Maya sits in the back seat of the car with her left hand atop Riley’s, comforting the other girl with her presence despite the silence that Maya offers. As she stares out the window, the passing scenes before her eyes remind her of her memories with one Joshua Matthews – her own memory reel begins to play in flashes of scenes and moments, one after another.  
  
She wouldn’t use the term ‘dating’ to refer to the times she has spent with Josh through the year; instead, Maya prefers to call it a friendship.  
  
The occasional mornings where he has breakfast with the Matthews and walked with her and Riley to school since it was en-route to NYU, the days where he tutored her in mathematics because she simply couldn’t get those numbers and complicated sequences of formulas, the Sunday evenings that he stopped by at Topanga’s just to read while she is helping Katy and to earn extra pocket money, or even those occasional weekends that he brought her to various art exhibitions and museums and they would both spend hours talking over ice cream after that. He even asked her to a Broadway performance twice and both times she had gladly accepted, while she had once invited him to go ice skating at Byrant Park and they spent the whole evening in each other’s company without a regard for their phones – at the end of the day, Maya had four messages from Riley, two messages from Farkle, and a missed call each from both Riley and her mother, while Josh had various missed calls that included Cory, Topanga, Riley and even a voicemail from Shawn asking him if he would “return Maya before her curfew and darn it, check your phones because Katy is worried, and I will skewer you if you do something like this again, Joshua”. Maya had a good laugh at Shawn’s harmless threat despite Josh’s brief look of horror.  
  
They have never held hands, not even linked arms – always with a good 6 inches between them as they walked or sat next to one another. She teased him whenever the opportunity arise, which was often considering Maya’s insatiable nature to rouse a verbal banter, and Josh never failed to laugh and rebutted her with his own quick comebacks. He texted her often as well, at least once in every few days, just to tell her something that had amused him very much or reminded him of her, and she would reply with her own little anecdote for the day.  
  
Maya doesn’t always spend time alone with Josh; there were those rare moments he would join her and her friends – such as the one late afternoon that Farkle decided he needed to experiment on water balloons and the reactions of people with them, and Maya wholeheartedly agreed while Riley and Lucas were roped in despite their protests. Or the morning of those exploratory autumn Saturdays where Josh and his friends decided to take a short road trip to D.C. and Maya came along because he knew she would enjoy the sights and sounds of the capital.  
  
Then there were those days when thunderstorms rained on their moods, or the universe dealt a terribly difficult card. When Shawn left for Southeast Asia for a whole month and Maya’s confidence crumbled in fear that he was never coming back because of an email he sent where he mentioned of how much he loved it there, Josh took it upon himself to contact Shawn and asked – almost pleaded, for Shawn to come back as soon as he was done with his assignment because “it just isn’t comforting for Maya when you say things like that while being away”, and he waited with Maya at JFK on the day Shawn was to return to New York. When Josh had failed one of his first university exams, Maya casually showed up at his dorm, uninvited, with an offer to go to the “one place that just bores my existence into the futile”, also known to Josh as the library, just so he can study.  
  
Josh brought Maya to church during the times she was questioning the existence of any higher powers at all, if she should even seek to believe, and he sat beside her in the same pew as he allowed her to fix her stare on the crucifix and altar before them as they basked in the silence. She tricked him into going to a neighborhood animal shelter with her when he was feeling unusually agitated because of the pressures and expectations of the university life, and it was there that Maya and the furry friends they met managed to tickle at Josh’s absent humor and cheer – Josh also ended up sponsoring a brown munchkin cat who was abandoned by its owner when they moved away. Said cat somehow ended up being Maya’s pet after a few weeks of going back and forth visiting it at the shelter, and was fondly named Paddington after Josh’s favorite childhood book and Maya’s tendency to feed it with marmalade every now and then.  
  
Sometimes the world revealed its ugly head of cruelty, and during those periods, Maya found herself stepping in when it targeted Josh as a victim of its unkindness, and vice versa. When a fellow university student, a junior, claimed that Josh stole his idea to be qualified for an illustrious national competition,  Maya – despite being a high school freshman, stood up to the junior and tricked him into admitting that the latter had falsify all claims against Josh out of mere spite and jealousy. Maya also found out from Riley, who eventually revealed everything to her in the confidence of their friendship, that Josh spoke to the girls in their high school soccer team for spreading malicious rumors about Maya’s supposed easy attitude when it comes to the opposite gender. The rumor had began ever since Maya made it as the starting right midfielder for all games, but she never paid heed to the remarks as she enjoyed the sport more than she could care for those senseless words that held no truth – until it got to the point where some guys consistently threw less than polite invitations to her, and she spent an afternoon crying in Riley’s arms when it got too much to bear on her own. Josh stepped in for Maya before Cory, Riley or anyone else could – because apparently it was just something he wanted to do for her.  
  
Despite how outsiders may view the relationship between them, Maya knows better – it’s platonic between them, one that’s built in trust and hope.  
  
They are not exclusive to each other either, not as how it would be if two are in an actual romantic relationship. Maya isn’t seeing anyone in particular, but she did have her share of occasional fleeting crushes every now and then as her social circle widens in high school because there would be someone or another who caught her admiration for something he said or done. She knows as well that Josh is close to a few female friends of his, and one of them had been on a date with him twice – though they remained friends after, and Maya never asked why the relationship didn’t work.  
  
As soon as they reach the hospital, Maya finds herself running alongside Topanga, Riley and Auggie towards the emergency department, and they soon see Cory and Shawn. Cory appears to be too distraught to talk and Topanga immediately holds him close to her. Shawn takes the responsibility to explain, and Maya catches a few words here and there, and she thinks her heart misses a beat when Shawn explains that they don’t know how long the surgery will take because Josh’s injuries are more severe than expected.  
  
A single tear rolls falls from the corner of her eye, and that’s when she feels Shawn’s arms wrapping themselves around her. “Maya?”  
  
“What can I do?” She mumbles into his jacket.  
  
“There’s nothing you can do, Maya.” Shawn calmly says.  
  
Maya quickly pulls back to look at Shawn in the eyes, “No, there’s got to be something I can do.” She demands. “Anything at all. Tell me, Shawn.”  
  
“Maya, listen to me – trust the doctors in there, they will help Josh and do the best they can. This is not one of those times that you can just swoop in for Josh and make it okay for him.”  
  
Tears begin to cascade down her cheeks, almost uncontrollably now. Quietly, in the corner of her heart, Maya admittedly still cares about Josh more than she does for any other boy, beyond just a friendship, and with a hope that still resides for their someday. Fear shrouds her heart and she realizes she is terrified at the notion of losing Josh in her life.  
  
“I can’t just stand here while he is in there, scared and fighting for his life, all alone.” She softly says.  
  
“Josh is not alone,” Shawn says as he wipes the tears from her face, “everyone is here for him, and he has you – Maya. You have always been with him, in his heart.” Maya widens her eyes, taken aback at Shawn’s words. Shawn offers a warm smile, “We all know how much you both mean to each other. Four years is a long wait but it’s obvious for all of us to see that both of you really want it to work, dancing around each other as you did for the past months – falling so close to being together but always scurrying away when it gets too deep.”  
  
“It’s hard, but I don’t want to not have those three years that await us still.” Maya admits.  
  
“You will have those years. The years ahead may be difficult, but you will have them to hold on to as hope, for right now – when he needs you to believe that he will make it through this too.”  
  
Maya nods. She looks into the direction of the surgery unit and says a silent prayer.  
  
When the entire Matthews clan, including Eric and Morgan, are finally informed that Josh is in a stable condition and only two visitors are allowed at a time considering Josh is still in the intensive care unit, Maya quietly moves away to remove herself from the equation of who gets to see Josh. She knows that his parents, or at least Cory, should be the first to see him after the accident. Shawn and Katy, who arrived after the closing shift at Topanga’s, share a knowing look – one which Maya catches from the corner of her eye, but she is grateful when they say nothing. As she has always been, Maya never asks anything for herself – she puts others before her and it’s enough for her to know that Josh is safe.  
  
Maya doesn’t get to see Josh until the day after the next, when he is finally moved into the regular ward room and Shawn brings her and Riley to the hospital. Riley gives her a gentle nudge to enter the room while the brunette reasons that she needs something to eat and Shawn needs to accompany her or she will just get lost in the huge hospital. Shawn laughs and knowingly agrees to go with Riley, but not before giving Maya a quick hug. “It’s going to be okay. No one is going to leave you, not me, not your mom – and not Josh.” He murmurs into her ear.  
  
Taking a deep breath, Maya walks in and sees the medical equipments hooked up to Josh – the slight bruises on his faces, and the inevitable bandages. Instead of wincing at the sight, Maya just smiles as she walks up to the bed. Josh’s bruised features mirror her smile as she comes closer.  
  
“You look awful.” She says.  
  
“And you look gorgeous.” He replies, earning a wider grin from her.  
  
Her fingers gingerly reach out for Josh’s hand and he notices it because his hand is also instinctively reaching for hers. Maya breathes in deeply at the warmth of their intertwined fingers. She knows long ago that what she felt for Joshua Matthews was more than a crush, but now – she is sure that her whole heart belongs to him and it will always be. Four years of waiting is minimal compared to the years ahead that she will spend with him – it’s the long game after all. The look in his blue eyes tells her that he knows what she is thinking and what she had been through the past 48 hours.  
  
“Thank you for still believing in our someday, Maya.”  
  
Shaking her head slowly, Maya smiles, “Thank you for letting me believe in our someday.”  
  
“I’m not letting you get rid of me so easily.” He teases, and Maya laughs before wrapping her arms around Josh with an affectionate hug.  
  
“You are such a dork, Joshua Matthews.”

**Author's Note:**

> So while it may be odd to consider Maya being active in soccer, considering canon's current portrayal of her dislike for anything with too much physical effort, I'd like to think that this is where liberties are taken before canon begins again with Season 3. People changes, interests develop, and we get easily fascinated with things, even things that we may never have given a thought to before. I imagine Maya's unpredictable yet fascinating nature would endeavor her to grow as her own person, including trying new things - and I'd like to think Josh would have a hand in that :) Thanks for reading!
> 
> Disclaimer: Characters belong to the wonderful world of Disney, and the creators of Girl Meets World/Boy Meets World


End file.
